The Roots of Categorization

Erscheinungsjahr 2027
ISBN: 978-0-19-923367-0
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 224 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 138 mm x 216 mm

The Roots of Categorization makes a distinctively philosophical contribution to our understanding of cognitive development, and in a thoroughly interdisciplinary spirit, it offers a radically new account of key elements of that development. It then draws lessons from this for broader philosophical issues. Initially, it focuses on the psychological research, done over many years, purporting to show that very young human infants, and possibly members of other species, have an innate capacity for recognizing objects as objects. Psychological interpretations of this research lean heavily on philosophical notions, and this makes them appropriate for philosophical investigation. Moreover, this research promises philosophical insight into our shared adult conceptual scheme, given that object recognition marks a necessary first step in the development of categorization, an ability central to that scheme. However, the central task of the book is the presentation of its own account of infant object recognition. After considering drawbacks to various interpretations of the experimental research and having carefully considered what it means to take objects as objects, it proposes a thoroughly novel way of understanding what makes infant object recognition and categorization possible. This proposal is called Referentialism. It has its origin in a certain overlooked way in which we interact with objects, and this is then applied to infant object recognition. Referentialism also gives us insight into wider philosophical issues. It allows us to recast both the issue of whether thought is dependent on language and the debate about whether human perceptual experience is necessarily conceptual.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Guttenplan, Samuel

Über Autor(innen)

Samuel Guttenplan is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London. He obtained the BA from The City College of New York (1965), where he taught from 1966-71. He received the DPhil in Philosophy from the University of Oxford in 1976. After one year at the Open University (1974/5), he held an appointment at Birkbeck from 1976 until 2010, and was made and Fellow of the College in 2012.